An important lesson for anyone who believes it makes sense to use an iPad instead of a computer. (for any task)
I've found iPads to be fantastic presentation tools.
Having an ipad on a conference/convention booth is amazing - airplay my rotating content to a big screen, and when someone walks up I can grab the ipad to delve into details based on the conversation.
Early on (first gen ipad) I had a whole client team nickname me "the ipad guy" because I showed up and presented across a few ipad apps where I could pinch, zoom, and annotate live instead of showing a vanilla PPT file.
I've used and like https://github.com/nyblnet/bento, but more and more I'm just going to self-contained html because the effort in to get what I want is just so low.
After months of suffering through that, he switched back to a Macbook Air and carries the iPad for watching Plex now. I am still baffled as to which "pros" the iPad Pro is targeting.
It's nice to have for movies on flights.
A few times a year I use it as a portable second monitor.
I use the stylus for sketching sometimes.
Being self-critical, I overpaid for something I thought I would use more.
I'm not a fan of and don't use the ipad OS features that basically make it more like a mac desktop.
Those who I have observed who have done so basically use the ipad for email and writing.
I was responding to "why would anyone use an ipad ever for anything?"
iPadOS 27 broke many keyboard use cases for me, including very simple things like using tab to move to the next field on a form in Safari. It worked in iPadOS 26, but doesn’t now.
This adds to the bug where switching between apps with modifier keys tends to cause those modifiers to “stick”. That bug has been there for years, and prevents me from using my iPad as a programming environment even though the software support is there.
Windows has the benefit that it's still an open-ish OS. If something doesn't work as expected, it can be somehow hacked into the way you need it to be. I think Linux doesn't work well with touch devices and pen input, also the choice of presentation software is much more limited.
Both the hardware and software market for tablets running a real desktop OS still seem pretty terrible, and it's been over 10 years since the release of the first Apple Pencil. No competition seems to be coming at all. Windows Surface exists, but software is still not great and the stylus not as good as Apple's.
(I’m not happy about that - I used to love modifying the system in unapproved ways on Windows and Mac.)
Apple used to put a lot of money into user experience to get the behavior correct for the users. Presentations are an important niche that that group wouldn't have ignored. What is correct presentations is probably wrong for everything else - but you still need to make that group work correctly since it is important.
I'm not sure what happened to user experience groups everywhere. They seem to have lost and the world is worse for it. Though at least they did set some good patterns that remain to this day - but only because the people in charge haven't changed it.
Anyway, a productive conversation this specific problem would be to borrow the solution from the Mac screen sharing UX. Pick which window(s) you want displayed on an external display. All other windows will only appear on the primary iPad screen. This is not a hard problem to solve.
That’s where I am.
I love my iPad, because I love the tablet form factor. I used an Android tablet for years prior to the iPad Pro releasing, and iPadOS is much better. I’ve played with Android tablets periodically since but they don’t seem to care about the form factor at all.
Just because it’s the best doesn’t mean it’s good, though. I don’t understand how they can justify selling a $300+ keyboard for a $1,700 device and never fix long-standing bugs with keyboard use, much less continue to add regressions in new releases that aren’t fixed.
It worked fine. They won their judgment, the lawyers with the desktop PC setup lost the case.
I rented a car from Enterprise recently. They use iPads for everything since you are walking out to the cars. This is a giant company doing most of their business logic on iPads.
In my mind the “iPad isn’t a real computer” crowd are doing a sort of pearl clutching. Has your “real” computer never had a bug or regresssion?
Sure, but the question is how limited you are in what you can do about it. iDevices are incredibly locked down. On my laptop I would just use the package manager to downgrade a package until it is fixed, or restore a backup. Or you could just fix the code yourself (or ask an AI for help to do so these days).
Even Windows has system restore to roll back to a previous OS version iirc (though it has been many years since I used windows last, going to all Linux has been so good). Not sure if that is possible on an iPad? I know Android doesn't really let you downgrade either the OS or an individual app, I would assume it is similar on iOS.
You can’t do it if the application is a web application.
You can’t do it if the vendor doesn’t provide the old version and you didn’t save a copy.
You can’t do it if there’s a security issue that required the update in the first place.
You can’t do it if you consume the app via the Microsoft store or Mac App Store.
You can’t do it if the application automatically manages its version.
Windows is probably the only OS that even gives you a realistic OS downgrade option that a non-technical user could utilize. On macOS you’re looking at a full disk wipe to downgrade. On Linux, well, let’s just say I don’t think the small law firm that won the trial I served on is going to be able to operate Linux in the first place.
Fix the code yourself, again I don’t think a small law firm is going to do that. Even if they were going to it wouldn’t be worth their hourly rate to try. They depend on their software vendors to fix issues.
In a corporate environment, a company like Enterprise can tightly test and control what versions of iPadOS and their own in-house apps run on their iPads. In that respect it’s just like a regular computer.
Its not just possible, but actually easy. You only need to run a competent OS that doesn't make an enemy out of users, or better, the owner is an actual owner and not a sharecropper (like Windows, MacOS, Android, or iOS)
That's a perfectly sensible opinion to have, but it's not exactly related to the discussion at hand, and we can't objectively say that the operating system with a 1-3% global marketshare is the only one that is suitable for general purpose computing use. That just doesn't make logical sense.
This would be like saying that the only real automobile out there is a 2018 manual transmission Buick Regal station wagon, and that everyone driving a Toyota RAV4 has it all wrong.
It doesnt take much to look at the anti-user, advert laden, AI jammed Windows 11. And well, forced Microsoft online accounts. This is well documented.
Similar with MacOS. Sure, if you do a bunch of songs and dances, you can get what resembles root. But every version closes and makes being a owner harder.
iOS? Are we even discussing how anti-owner this platform is? Thats right, this whole article is about unilateral changes by the real owner of all these devices.
Android is better, but even so, actively prevents root by owners. The existing root are effectively attacks. And the upcoming 'wait 24h to install your own app store' is just more anti-owner.
And it leaves Linux and BSD's.
However, you can downgrade to any previous iOS version if a bootrom exploit is found for your device.
For example you can use https://github.com/pwnerblu/surrealra1n to downgrade A12/A13 chip devices using this bootrom exploit: https://github.com/ahmadkamal09999-tech/usbliter8
iOS in contrast, follows the modern way of designing devices: nothing is customizable besides mild “theming.” The entire interface (and every behavior) springs fully formed from the mind of an inexperienced “uX dEsIgNeR” and is a fixed, immutable object whose specifics are not available to be adjusted.
And we certainly can do that, it's just that what we are discussing in this thread is not related to that concept.
The root comment of this thread is "An important lesson for anyone who believes it makes sense to use an iPad instead of a computer. (for any task)" which is just a ridiculous statement, especially the "for any task" part.
Whether or not I can complete the tasks I need and want to do has very little to do about the level of customization of the OS.
I do believe them to be computers that excel in specialized settings. Like in your two examples.
Enterprise is running what I assume to be a web-based CRUD application and the trial attorneys were displaying PDFs and other documents on a projector.
Besides code compilation I can’t really think of anything an iPad can’t do. Can you list out some examples?
Ditto for drawing on or highlighting PDFs with only a single mirrored screen being visible to everyone. You couldn’t ask for a simpler task.
It’s tasks that are more complex than this where iOS (including the hilariously-named iPadOS which we all know is just iOS) is a joke.
I’ll give you some things that I would never bother to try on iOS. To be fair, an android tablet is just as bad:
- There’s a folder full of files and I want to organize them by moving them in a few groups into different folders. A mouse and multiple selection in various varieties, and opening several finder windows makes this trivially easy. Doing this in iOS is painful.
- I need to extract three files from a zip and modify one of them and then zip them back up. A few clicks on macOS. An afternoon project on iOS.
- I have a movie file and I want to add a subtitle track to it. Or maybe change the container format to be compatible with my Apple devices. 10 seconds with the terminal and FFMpeg. I’m sure someone will sell me an iOS app with a weekly subscription cost, which might do it.
I could go on all day.
I got rid of my last iPad about 7 years ago and haven’t missed it. My M1 MacBook Air is more useful to me than the latest iPad Pro (even with its $300 keyboard accessory) would be, and I’d never trade it.
We could also go on all day about things that your Mac can't do like illustrating with Procreate, connecting to a cellular network, FaceTime with a rear camera, etc, but this whole debate centers around this idea that the iPad is just this useless thing that can't be used as a general purpose tool. That idea is not grounded in reality. It's grounded in user preferences, but if we go down that rabbit hole we can definitely nitpick various things that Windows/macOS/Linux can't do.
Regarding your examples:
I'm confused about what's difficult about these file management and zip/unzip tasks. It works exactly the same as macOS [1]. You can even use a mouse with an iPad. Sure, you lose multiple Finder windows. [2] This costs a small amount of time. "Afternoon project" is a wild exaggeration. [3]
Unlike your Mac, Files centrally manages multiple cloud storage connections. For example, Filen shows up right in Files, but on a Mac you have to do some weird "mount to network share" stuff as a workaround.
You can literally run ffmpeg in a shell on your iPad: https://shaunhevey.com/posts/how-to-use-ffmpeg-on-ios/
[1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/102532
[2] We can also argue that my desktop with 3 monitors is more capable at this task than a laptop computer at a coffee shop but I can't exactly put that in a small bag and take it with me, so the iPad is just making an expected trade-off.
[3] We might even make the argument that file system manipulation has been shown to be a failure in general purpose operating system UX for the general public and that file folder organization is far too difficult for the average person. I know this idea sounds a little insane but if we really think about it I think there's some merit to the idea. How many relatives do you know who have misplaced files in a sea of folders or dump all their stuff on the desktop with hundreds of desktop icons everywhere because they don't know where else to put them? I have at least one elderly person in my life who is only able to find documents on their computer via their physical graphical position on the desktop. I submit the idea that the average person may prefer the paradigm where apps and services "contain" the data and present the data in a way that makes logical sense for that data (e.g., photo albums for photos, message feeds for messages, project structures for documents) and the data moves around between applications via the share button.
It immediately collapses when you don’t have enough storage space for everything at once. Or potentially the bandwidth to transfer it to and from iCloud. As the person who’s called in to help when someone doesn’t want to have to add an expensive higher iCloud tier, or buy a new $1400 phone to get higher storage, it is painful that I can barely even help solve these problems myself on that platform.
The Files app is occasionally useful and is better than the first decade, where iOS didn’t have one. But the Finder (or even Windows Explorer) absolutely embarrasses it.
Some of my relatives are highly anti-cloud. I know they're also at risk to lose their data, as they don't back up anything. When I set up a backup the workflow isn't followed, the time machine drive gets unplugged, etc.
My other set of relatives recognize the concept that they are paying for someone else to handle this data for them and not have to worry about it. They're on the 50GB iCloud plan, so it's not a huge deal.
As far as paying a lot or not a lot, I think it's just a personal question of "is this data important or not?" It either is or isn't. The avenues for saving money if you really want to keep storing a lot of stuff are limited. I should know, I have my own home NAS, and I can tell you it definitely hasn't been a money-saving exercise.
I definitely agree that Files is behind the rest and can be a whole lot better.
I don't know why a filesystem could not show me both views for when I want one or the other. I like having all of my movie files organized into a single folder. I don't like when I can't find the damn one I'm looking for but I remember I last used it or edited it or transcoded it with HandBrake. Let me choose how I view my stuff: as I organized them, or, if I turn everything 90 degrees, how they were created.
I really, really, really missed having an actual laptop. I lost the ability to:
* Listen to music while watching a video (iPadOS does not allow multiple audio sources at once; playing a YouTube video while playing a song on Apple Music wasn't allowed)
* Quickly edit photos (I had 400 GB+ photos to cull/cut down; Lightroom for iPad required me to transfer photos to internal storage before culling to upload to cloud storage first, and I didn't have enough room; and specialized software for culling on the iPad equivalent to FastRawViewer that may or may not have worked all had a subscription fee)
* Easily search for files (Files search was far slower and unreliable, especially with files split between OneDrive, iCloud Drive, and Google Drive), and manage files in general
* Edit videos with the features I needed (Premiere Pro lacked features on iPad and other video editor alternatives had no iPad equivalents), or simply easily edit videos due to friction in file management
* Use video-recording software like OBS to record a presentation
* Use all features of flashcard software named Anki; I could not export individual decks or use other features (desktop-only feature; the iOS and browser versions did not have this)
* Easily manage and resize having multiple windows on the screen at once (a two-second window arrangement took 10+ seconds, with constant hold-and-dragging and precise dragging at specific changing corners required)
* Quickly and easily extract text from images for translation elsewhere (which added difficulties for language learning)
* Run certain internet browser extensions
* Compile and edit source code for software
And so on. I'll grant that many users won't need many of these features. But at the very least, the ability to find files and manage windows is essential, yet it's still so cumbersome with iPads versus laptops years after the first iPadOS release.
I fundamentally think that computers should work for you, and you shouldn't need to change your habits and workflow due to OS limitations (losing the ability to simply listen to music while watching a video was the biggest one for me). Yet I ran into so many walls with the iPad.
I could complain about a Windows machine messing up my habits simply because Copy and Paste uses CTRL instead of CMD. Even if I have that complaint and it legitimately messes with my habits, that Windows machine still has that capability and it functions, so whether or not I like their implementation is a matter of personal preference and not an indictment of the fundamental capabilities of the OS.
I could easily make a list just like yours of things that don't work well on a Windows/Mac/Linux system that work great on iPad. Illustrating sucks on those platforms compared to using Procreate on iPad. They aren't good for scanning QR codes, barcodes, using front and rear cameras (FaceTime). They are bad at being held with 1 hand or being used with cellular connectivity. Making a list like this doesn't mean that Mac/Windows/Linux systems aren't suitable for general purpose computing, it just means that each platform has its own strengths.
There are also some potential issues with some of the line items you have here:
- Multiple audio playback is actually possible, but the app developer has to implement background playback. Apple is providing the functionality, it's not really their fault that developers don't use it. (e.g., Flacbox allows this exact use case)
- There are alternative apps you can use to search your iOS/iPadOS device (e.g., easySearch). Do we not complain about bad search on desktop OSes like Windows too? I was just on an HN thread recently where a commenter mentioned how Spotlight on macOS sucks.
- Edit videos with the features you need: this has nothing to do with the underlying OS, this has a lot more to do with the software published to the OS. We could similarly criticize Windows for not having Final Cut Pro or Linux for not having Adobe Premiere but that doesn't mean those systems aren't capable of running that type of software.
- There are definitely ways to record presentations on iPad. They aren't as flexible as OBS, but if your goal is to record a presentation, it can definitely be done. I would guess that most people doing that specific task are likely to do that via Teams, Zoom, or Google Meet rather than setting up OBS, even on desktop systems.
- I'm not sure what you mean about the inability to quickly extract text from images, this is a built-in feature of the iPadOS that works identically to macOS.
- The limitations of iPadOS and iOS browsers are well known, but it does have extension support and so this again becomes a question of software library rather than underlying capability.
But QR codes shouldn't even exist.
All of these are form-factor complaints. macOS, Linux and Windows all support every single feature you just listed, it's just that people don't buy hardware providing it. Conversely, the iPad has these hardware features, but is widely criticized for only supporting an OS that is markedly less-capable than macOS. iPadOS is a derelict wasteland lacking USB class-compliant hardware drivers, basic graphics APIs and any of the escape hatches that macOS offers to power users.
I just can't see how anyone can make this argument in good-faith. It is consensus that iPads are less capable than Macs, and most people will blame the iPad software more than the hardware. iPads are artificially restrained by a weak, incapable OS that prevents the hardware from cannibalizing Mac sales. iPads might win on a convenience factor, but they will always lose when comparing capabilities. It could be argued that iPadOS has a grand total of zero redeeming features.
These are just blatant objectively false statements, and annoying forms of techno-elitism. We can play ball if we want to talk about the iPad having compromises or limitations, but y'all act like the iPad is the spawn of Satan.
On my iPad, it theoretically works the same, but the workflow differs when I take the screenshot. The screen gets filled entirely by the new screenshot interface instead of keeping to a small window that keeps other windows in view (like on MacOS), and often, text selection just doesn’t work on the iPad until I crop the screenshot further to just the text (versus working reliably on MacOS). So, it’s fiddly and takes a lot of time.
On the MacBook, I could even install free third-party software to skip a couple steps (Cmd+A, Cmd+C) and immediately save any text in the selection to my clipboard.
And that is the core of the issue for me. For the actual person using the device to get something done, many of the tasks I detailed are not possible to complete on the iPad as it is today, due to limitations on what I can install.
I would be happy if I could at least dual boot to another OS or run a virtual machine (even if touch becomes disabled) so I can install more software tools, as the hardware capability is there for the iPad. On Linux, at least I can run a Windows virtual machine to run Adobe Premiere Pro (or dual boot with Windows), but I cannot fully use the hardware of an iPad with the way its operating system is currently designed.
Take the screenshot > hit the checkbox > save to photos > open photos app > choose the first photo > select the text.
I guess it’s true that there is a lack of overlapping windows but other than that this process is very quick with very few button presses.
The situation should dictate the solution as decided by the user, instead of the OS dictating a solution and limiting options regardless of the situation.
The iPad can use apps in multiple floating windows, there’s no difference here. You don’t have to switch back and forth between apps.
You can even use a keyboard and mouse and the same copy paste keyboard shortcuts if you really want.
And I’m sure there are apps on the App Store to help this workflow in some way. The iPad isn’t some static device where you’re stuck with the software it comes with.
Why does app have to support it when the OS is perfectly capable of doing this ?
This situation is identical to when Electron desktop apps that ignore the native menu bars and UI elements. How about all the AI harnesses that refuse to act like a normal posix app where you can pipe and redirect output and all that.
It’s not like desktop operating systems are immune from the same issues of applications violating the design principles of the OS.
Maybe a platform where the developers have to do a little more work to keep the OS smooth and performant isn’t such a bad thing.
But you could always make an app to handle car rentals for ipad or iphone or whatever. You could make an app for lawyers doing documents. That was never the argument against "ipad isn't a computer." It doesn't expose the file system to you. More than anything, it tries to keep up the curtain between you, Dorothy, and the wizard, who is just a man after all. That is why it is not a real computer and will never be one fundamentally.
The problem is that the line of being “real” or not is defined in the eyes of the beholder. Is a computer a real computer if it lets me rm -rf / or is that just stupid system design? Is a computer not a real computer if you can’t move the menu bar or taskbar or are the designers of the computer allowed to have a strong opinions on such topics? Everyone will draw those lines in different places.
We could use this same philosophy to claim that a laptop isn’t a real computer because it doesn’t let me add expansion cards, doesn’t have GPIO pins, etc. All those lines in the sand are in the eye of the beholder.
In your eyes, a computer that doesn’t let you write and execute arbitrary code on the device is not a real computer, but to the vast majority of people on this planet have no ability or desire to write code ever on any device, so for them that distinction is completely irrelevant. That would be like if my garbage man told me that my Toyota Tundra isn’t a real truck because it can’t compact garbage.
but for work where you actually need to create things and do things that don't fit the mold (custom software dev, use multiple apps at the same time for creative work etc etc) a classic computer like a mac or windows/linux is far superior
Hell, I’m not a coder; I don’t even work in IT. I can install Linux and configure it reasonably well for an end user, but ask me to code something up and… well, hope you like Claude’s output.
Her desktop is a 27” iMac that’s too old for OCLP to help keep it going, and I keep thinking about putting Linux on it, but I can’t imagine trying to get her onto something that isn’t either Windows (used at work) or macOS (we have full Apple ecosystem at home and her laptop is an M2 MBA) until it just won’t run Citrix and a browser capable of hitting Gmail. Or until Apple finally makes another 27” iMac, which given the RAM and storage situation isn’t happening any time soon.
On her phone.
Without her computer logged into her email.
Without her phone.
"I can do this for you, but I will need to use your computer to do it, and I will need you to read me off a bunch of 2FA codes in all likelihood, so you can either give me your phone or you can sit next to me while I do it. Oh, and they're your emails, so you may as well pull up a chair or I'm just going to have to guess whether you care or not."
My time is valuable too. You want me to do it, you help.